The No. 23 ranked Cyclones volleyball team returns home for the first time since Aug. 27 for the Cyclone Invitational, which will run from Thursday until Saturday.
Iowa State enters the Cyclone Invite 7-1, but is coming off its first loss of the season to No. 14 Creighton. Despite the loss, the Cyclones have had an incredible start to the season and now find themselves ranked No. 23 in the country.
The Cyclones have three opponents for the Invite, UC Santa Barbara (UCSB), Ohio and Drake.
Up first for the Cyclones is UCSB, who they will be facing for the first time in program history. UCSB enters the Cyclone Invite at 8-1 with the only defeat at the hands of No. 7 Oregon.
The Gauchos are riding a four-match win streak into Ames, defeating San Diego State, San Francisco, Utah and Tennessee State. UCSB is led by Michelle Ohwobete, who was just named Big West Player of the Week and earned a spot on the Utah Classic All-Tournament Team after helping the Gauchos go 3-0.
The Cyclones’ second opponent of the Invite is Ohio, who they will also be facing for the first time in program history. Ohio comes into the Cyclone Invite 5-4, winning its last match against William & Mary.
Caitlin O’Farrel was named MAC Offensive Player of the Week for the Bobcats after impressive performances against UTEP, North Carolina State and William & Mary.
The final opponent for the Cyclones is the Drake Bulldogs, who they will be meeting for the 60th time in program history.
Drake enters the Cyclone Invite at 5-4, but all of their losses have come to teams that have been ranked in the top-25 at some point in the season. Those teams are Marquette, Washington State, Western Kentucky and Dayton.
The players to watch for on the Bulldogs are Macy Daufeldt and Taylor Oberpriller, who have 122 and 121 kills on the season, respectively.
The Cyclones are riding a 12-match win streak against their instate rivals and leads the all-time series 39-20. The match against Drake will conclude the Cyclones non-conference schedule as they gear up for the Big 12 season.
The match against UCSB will be at 6:30 p.m. Thursday. The match against Ohio will be at 6:30 p.m. Friday. The match against Drake will be at 2 p.m. Saturday.
The matches against Ohio and Drake can be streamed on ESPN+, while the match against UCSB can be streamed on cyclones.com or cyclones.tv on Mediacom.
